


mock me maliciously;

by ultraviolence



Series: so many constellations [2]
Category: Catalyst: A Rogue One Novel - James Luceno, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friendship/Love, Light Angst, M/M, Pre-Canon, Romantic Friendship, UST, contains references to Catalyst, lots of foreshadowing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 10:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9119170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultraviolence/pseuds/ultraviolence
Summary: Galen sometimes caught snippets of what people (including their professors) was saying about them—Orson and Galen, inseparable duo, or, more recently, Erso and Krennic, troublemakers. //In which Galen Erso met one (1) Orson Krennic, and the rest, as they say, is history, although history was frequently built on echoes. T for mentions of violence and blood (but nothing graphic). Set a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a long, long time before events in Catalyst and the movie.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so...I lied about "light-hearted". I think it's rather hard to write about them without addressing the issue of Krennic's growing darkness/madness, their differences, and the fact that they're going their separate ways (a foregone conclusion). This one specifically touches those issues. That being said, title is still from an Akhmatova poem. Without further ado, enjoy!

Galen Erso doesn’t have any illusions about himself.

It was easy when the world kept throwing names like “prodigy”, “freak”, and “outcast” his way. When he entered the Futures program, when he went to Coruscant and leave his old life behind, he wasn’t really expecting that things would change. In fact, he expected that things would get tougher from then on.

Half a year went by before their paths crossed, half a year in which he was revered by some of his professors, abhorred by his classmates. He doesn’t really mind. Half a year went by and already he was actively targeted by people who felt threatened by his continued existence in the program. He was okay with that. He understood perfectly well the age-old adage of picking your battles.

He made some friends, of course, acquaintances more like it, people who were still nice to him, even after he turned down their offer to go out and have fun, or after he proved their ideas wrong in class. 

Then he met Orson Krennic.

He only heard _snippets_ about him, whispers in the hallway, declarations that they were going out to so and so’s party with him tonight in the dormitory corridors. The look on their faces—fascinated, yet at the same time not quite sure what to make of it. What to make of _him_. 

Galen was intrigued.

The first time they stumbled on each other was eight months into the program, when Galen was staying up late in the chemistry lab. He preferred maths and physics by far, but he caught a glimpse of something interesting in class and was determined to put it at rest. That’s just how his mind works—it won’t let go of things until it’s finished.

It was probably sometime after midnight when the door swooshed open. 

He doesn’t look up—he wasn’t expecting that it was anyone he know, and truthfully, he doesn’t care, he was this close to a breakthrough—but the newcomer confidently sat opposite him in the lab table.

“Are you trying to start a reaction?” The other boy’s voice was sophisticated, every inch a Coruscanti. But Galen replayed it in his mind and immediately discovered rougher edges, edges that the speaker was trying to hide.

“No, not really,” He answered, a bit distracted, still looking at his test subject. “It was precisely what I was trying to avoid. You see—“

He started to explain, but momentarily stopped, since their eyes caught each other, like two stars aligning for the first time. The gaze that caught him was blue, steel hiding underneath its folds. It was eyes that could move the heavens.

“Orson,” The other boy says, by way of introduction. He was wearing casual clothes with a lab robe—the same white that Galen was wearing, emblazoned with the campus insignia—thrown over it. He leaned forward, obviously interested, holding a cup of something with one hand. “Orson Krennic. Sorry if I disturbed you.”

Galen was irreversibly distracted, and his expression—which so often betrayed him, and caused him to be labelled as _tactless_ —was probably plain as day, judging from what flickered in Orson’s expressive features. The younger boy laughs.

“You’re Galen Erso. I was here because of the same reason as you,” He explained, putting his cup on the table, stretching his arms a little. Galen raised an eyebrow, admittedly surprised and perhaps more than a little intrigued by the casual yet confident way Krennic dropped his name— _his_ name, dropped not by him as the holder, but by a stranger who strolled in as if he owns the place. 

“Really?” Galen responded, and, despite his rising interest, his skepticism bleeds through to his voice. “You’re here because—“ He doesn’t know how to explain it, much less to someone he doesn’t know (he was bad enough with people he know well) so he swept his arm over the general direction of the experiment he was conducting. “—because of _this_?”

“Well,” Orson took a sip of the liquid he was carrying, and Galen could finally see that it was coffee. “Yes and no. I don’t want to bore you.”

With anyone else, he’d probably mumble something incomprehensible and then fix his attention back to his work, the other person forgotten for the rest of the night and, more often than not, the rest of his or her existence. He know fellow students who doesn’t really talk to him anymore because he opted to ignore them whenever they happen to be in the same room and Galen was busy with something.

But with Krennic, it was different. For maybe the first time in a long time since his precocious and isolated childhood in another planet, another system, Galen Erso felt the need for _approval_. He tried a smile, but it came out as a grimace, so he chose to forgo it altogether.

“You don’t,” He blurted out, maybe a little gruffly, suddenly finding the floor to be much more interesting than the intense gaze of the other. _Well, Galen_ , he thought to himself,  wryly, _congratulations, you ruined your chances again_.

To his surprise, Krennic laughs. It was a hearty affair, punctuating the space between them and the empty hour of the night, yet somehow, he still manages to sound elegant and interested. Galen felt a pang of…something, which he half-heartedly identified as jealousy, but also something else.

“Sorry, I’m just glad that I didn’t bore you,” The boy in white grins, as if sharing an inside joke with him, and at that moment, Galen felt something crystallise between them. Perhaps something good. But he was still wary, having lived his life on the outside. He tried to get his attention back towards his experiment.

“Do you maybe want some suggestions on how to improve your chances of success?”

Galen scowled, feeling his attention being pulled back to the other, like a wandering star being tugged off course by a black hole’s gravitational pull. He learnt, that night, that it was nigh impossible to ignore Orson Krennic.

“I’d like to see you try,” He told him, coming on more confrontational than he intended to. Part of him flinched— _now you’ve successfully pushed someone away again, Galen_. But Krennic, strange enigma that he was, smiled and leaned forward, almost conspiratorially.

“Maybe if you put _this_ here…”

The rest, as they say, is history. But history was frequently built on echoes.

* * *

They weren’t close friends, not really, until the first year had passed. Krennic lived on the other wing of the dormitory building, and their circle of friends are radically different and rarely overlaps. They still stumble upon each other every now and then, of course, in the winding paths that go through the Brentaal campus complex, in the dormitory hallways, and in-between classes, Galen always hurrying towards something or other with datapads and notes in his arms, Krennic more languid, but with apparent purpose, trailed by two or three of his closest friends. 

_It was impossible to find Orson Krennic without his friends_ , he wrote, one night, in a piece of paper. _Just as it was impossible to find certain precious minerals and rocks without other things heralding their coming_.

On chance meetings like these, Galen would mumble a greeting, but Krennic—Galen was always marvelling at the mystery he (re)presented— _he_ would smile broadly, as if they were sharing a secret. As if something special had transpired between them.

On certain occasions, he could feel the eyes of the others who was with the younger boy, their gazes intensely curious, but also, he felt, much more tangible and yet more subtle than curiosity: jealousy.

Orson Krennic inspires jealousy.

They finally shared a couple of classes together, in their second year, and it was from there that he learnt that the other boy had an obvious bent towards engineering. He was stellar at maths, excellent with physics, okay with chemistry, quite terrible with biology, but  in any case, he was demonstrating every sign of a great engineer in the making. It was also from there that Galen learnt about Krennic’s ambition, how he had the aptitude to arrange pieces on the board to fulfil his goal. 

At the same time, they were becoming fast friends, inseparable and irreversible. He sometimes caught snippets of what people (including their professors) was saying about them—Orson and Galen, inseparable duo, or, more recently, Erso and Krennic, troublemakers. It was as if wherever he goes, Krennic’s reputation and favour follows him, and there was a tangible shift towards how people were treating him.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Galen Erso felt _respect_ from his peers. 

The attention—although indirectly—still makes him feel uncomfortable. He still mumble incomprehensibles at people, still trying to explain his wildly running ideas and magnificently failing, still arguing with the people whose ideas were wrong in his opinion. But there was a _line_ now, manifesting as if in thin air, shimmering in the space between him and the rest of the world, a line that everyone else seemed to recognised and avoid crossing.

No one picks fights with him any longer, not really. Galen Erso slept less.

A boy named Kit in his astrophysics class do, though. Galen would never forget that—the first time in months—someone corners him after class. 

“Not so much of a prodigy outside class, aren’t you?” Kit spat, his Dressellian berth towering above him. Galen glanced at him, once, mind calculating all possible solutions and exits.

“Not with, well, the likes of you. You can’t possibly understand.” His voice was soft, but the implication was clear: _you probably don’t even understand what I’m talking about in class_. 

“Big talk,” The Dressellian snarls, making his intention clear. Galen assessed his escape routes really quickly. 

“Let’s see how good you are with your fists, _prodigy_.” 

Everything was pretty much a blur after that. One moment the bigger boy was raising his fist, the other moment he was down on the floor, Krennic on top of him, raining punches with a soldierly precision.

“I thought—“ Krennic declared, in-between the punches he delivered and the ones he  was dodging, “I thought I made it _really clear_ that people shouldn’t mess with my _friends_.”

He grinned, viciously, a ferocious animal hungry for blood. Galen noticed that his fist does have specks of blood in it—he’d managed to break the Dressellian’s nose. But he seemed to have done an irreparable damage towards Kit’s spirit, despite their size difference. “Especially _not_ Galen Erso.”

Kit groans in obvious pain, hands immediately went to his face, feeling his broken nose. Galen could feel something breaking in him, too, something painful and terrible, washing over him, and he could only stand there, helplessly. He felt that he should say something, do something to make it stop. Should do something to make the violence and the pain and the blood and the hurt _stop_. There is so much blood. Too much.

“Krennic,” He finally managed to croak, moving a tentative step in their direction, but then stopped, his legs refusing to move and feeling like lead. “ _Orson_. Please stop. We have to take him to the medbay.”

“Or,” Krennic immediately quips, still looming over the hurt Dressellian, tilting his head as if to better look at the damage he’d managed to inflict, “Or we could leave him here and tell him not to tell anyone about it. Let him stew in his _lessons_ for a bit.” 

Galen’s words upped and left, but his mind noted that there was something dangerously cruel about his friend, something twisted, a dark machination that he’d glimpsed at times when they were together, something that he wasn’t sure his friend has truly comprehended, even if he thinks that he is. 

Even if Krennic thinks that he is in control.

He shudders. Krennic turned to him. “What do you want me to do now, Galen?”

It was a question so unexpected, so surprising, that Galen was thrown off-balance. Krennic stared at him expectantly while sentences after sentences running in his mind wildly, as if fleeing from a burning house, most of them unfinished, in various states of undress. He opened his mouth, not really expecting anything coherent to come out.

“Let’s just go,” He blurted out, a bit relieved that his heart speaks through. “Let’s just go and…I don’t know, do you have any class after this? Maybe we could go to the library or the park and sitandmaybetalkaboutsomething—“

Krennic stood up and smiled, dusting himself as if nothing ever happened. Kit, still on the floor, started to whimper. “I’m free. Actually, I was looking for you, since last night you promised that we’re going to get coffee together after your class, and then to Mo’s party. You still up for it?”

He doesn’t remember giving Orson word about going to the party, but he needed to do anything to get away from here, and forgot what had happened. A deeper, darker voice in his mind whispered: _to forgot what you had witnessed about your friend_. Galen forces a smile, and steered Orson away from the Dressellian.

“Sure, but let me get back to my room for a bit. I need to drop these datapads and holomessage my lecturer.” He hesitated, but then added: “Would that be okay with you, Orson?”

As always, Krennic smiled. “Anything for you, Galen.”

* * *

Despite Krennic’s subtle but apparent hand in controlling the spread of what had happened between their fellow students, the professors caught wind of it. He doesn’t know, exactly, if they heard some students talking about it, and decided to verify the rumour, or if someone straight-out told them. Knowing Krennic, though, and his position in the pecking order, it was probably the former.

They were both called into the Dean’s office at the same time. The dean was a frail but stern-looking woman, eyes hidden behind thick glasses. She doesn’t look up when both he and Orson entered, letting them stood in front of her desk in silence for a few moments. Orson, being Orson, affected a not-so-subtle cough.

“Mr. Krennic,” The dean acknowledges them with a nod, motioning for them to sit down. “Mr. Erso. I was expecting the both of you.”

“I do receive a holomessage from your assistant, ma’am.” Krennic said with a smile, every inch unflappable, but the sarcasm wasn’t lost on Galen.

“You’re both here for a reason. You’re both on your way to excellent careers, and your fellow students seemed to be very fond of you both, but I heard word about a certain disturbance.”

Krennic leaned forward, the way he does when he’s interested, hanging on to the dean’s every word. Or, at least, _appeared_ that way. 

“What sort of disturbance?” Galen bites, discouraging his friend from inciting further trouble. Krennic’s eyes caught his, gleaming like a vibroblade.

“Ma’am, may I pointed out that students say plenty of things about other students all the time?” The younger boy interjected. “That’s pretty much what people do.”

_So be careful what you said next_ , was the subtext underlying his friend’s words, and Galen caught it effortlessly, the current between them buzzing with electricity, radio signals too low-frequency to be heard by other people. Other _humans_ , in any case.

Anyone who is not them. The dean continued.

“I am perfectly aware of that, Mr. Krennic. Thank you for pointing that out. However,” Galen instantly felt his friend’s ears metaphorically perking up at the dean’s words, “The news I received here is…quite disturbing. It says that you broke a fellow student’s nose and beat him up until he was quite insensible.”

“Untrue,” Krennic replied, smoothly. _He should be a lawyer_ , _or a politician,_ Galen thought, _his skills are wasted as an engineer_. “I know perfectly well that some…of my fellow students would fabricate things in order to undermine my good standing. Ma’am,” He added, not daunted by the dean’s eyes on him, “You know about my reputation. My _excellent_ academic career.”

“I know about your record, Mr. Krennic. You’ve had an excellent record. But,” He could swear that he saw Orson’s smile waver for a fraction of a second, “It also says here that you were planning to threaten the aforementioned student. In cooperation with Mr. Erso.” She quickly interjects before Krennic could deny it again.

Galen felt a faintness coming. If he was expelled, he would have wasted his only chance of making a good life for himself. He doesn’t know about Orson, but getting expelled was obviously something he would have avoided at any cost. 

“Galen did nothing,” Krennic pointed out, before Galen could stand up for himself, “If anything, ma’am, I should point out that _he_ was the victim. Kit was threatening him and was about to beat him up when I arrived. I did what I could to help him.”

“By beating the bully into submission?”

“Well,” Krennic cocked his head, and Galen still wasn’t quite sure what was going on in that head of his. It was as if there was a ghost in Orson’s machine, rewriting things that Galen know and loved. “From a certain point of view. But it was a conflict, and it was either us or him.”

“So you admitted to breaking Mr. Veshere’s nose, beating him up, and threatening him? How would _you_ defend yourself, Mr. Krennic?”

Krennic smiled, this time mirthlessly, all traces of humour gone from his expression. Suddenly he looked so cold. Suddenly it was as if the cold, dark thing inside him finally peeked out from behind his eyes.

Suddenly Galen Erso felt as if he doesn’t quite recognise Orson Krennic anymore.

“Kit’s on the wrong side,” He stated, simply, and Galen’s stomach turned, not for the first time.

* * *

Neither of them got expelled, and Krennic took the brunt of the punishment—the dean warned him that, with another strike, he would most definitely get expelled for bad conduct and trouble—despite Galen’s efforts to return the favour, to protect his friend in turn.

Galen Erso avoided Orson Krennic after that.

It certainly helps that they were being pulled towards different directions, academically and otherwise, and it also helps that they didn’t share a lot of classes together. He perfectly understood the marginal chances of his undertaking—there were few enough students in the program as it is, all of them going their own way—and Orson had always been the one with both pragmatism and foresight in spades, his astuteness bordering on eerie at times, but Galen was a prodigy, a genius in his own right.

He finally owns that fact by scribbling all the variables in a piece of paper one late night, and solved the problem in the way his scientifically-inclined mind know how: by turning it into calculations.

Of course, he wasn’t under any illusion, either, that this was a permanent arrangement, and it was simply impossible to avoid Orson Krennic.

Not to mention that they are far from done with each other.

One sunny day—if sunny even applies to Coruscant, although the Brentaal campus grounds certainly gives off enough artificial heat and light to give off that impression—Galen was sitting on a park bench, the campus library visible in some distance away, reading on datapads and making calculations for a publication he was working on, when a familiar figure arrived and sat down on the other end. Galen being Galen, he doesn’t really realise who it was until it was too late. 

“Galen,” His friend (still? former?) hazarded with a wry smile, once eye contact has been established. Galen instantly felt it again—a pull, something akin to experiencing the jump to hyperspace for the first time, the stars blurring into points of light, and a current, igniting between them. 

“Orson,” He acknowledges, nodding absent-mindedly, lost somewhere between the piles of data in his head and the person in front of him. The current between them hums, a steady rhythm reconnecting.

“You were avoiding me,” His friend stated, a simple mathematical solution in its own right. Uncharacteristically direct for Orson Krennic. Galen continued scrawling, furiously, his mind now working on two things. 

“It’s simple cause and effect.” He finally said, after a certain amount of silence, followed by a rather lame shrug. Stealing a glance, it was plain to see that Orson was unconvinced. He was raising an eyebrow quizzically.

“What’s the probability?” He asked, and Galen knew the game he was playing. He stopped scribbling for a moment, raising his gaze to meet those familiar blue eyes, and thought about it.

“Maybe about 0,2% until graduation.” 

“How about until the end of this year?”

“Higher. About 0,4%.”

“That low?” Orson asked, ever so casually, draping his arm in the space between them, and for a moment, Galen believed that the incident with Kit had never happened. For a brief moment, Galen Erso saw what they said about them— _Krennic and Erso, inseparable_. Perhaps forever. Perhaps—and this is an even wilder conjecture—a force larger than them would be the only thing that could tear them apart. He felt speechless, a dead lake bed of dried-up words.

“I don’t…I don’t know what to do.” He finally admitted, avoiding his friend’s intense gaze. There are layers upon layers of questions on that gaze. What unsettled him most was that they mirrored his own.

“I’d never let them expel you,” Krennic said, fiercely, with a tinge of fire that made Galen instinctively cower, away from him, away from the firestorm. “You know that I’d do anything for you, Galen, and I mean it.”

Not _are you afraid of me_ or _I’m sorry_ , barely a trace of _I didn’t mean to_. Instead, it was _I’d do anything for you_ , and it frightened him, terrified him, the power of it. The promise of it. Krennic wants Galen to lean in further after his heartfelt declaration, his rare honesty, like a living thing towards the sun, but instead, Galen felt quite the opposite. He was afraid.

“Thank you,” He said, mangling the words a bit, still not quite sure what he was supposed to say. “Orson.” He added, gaze flitting between the person—the _stranger_ —sitting beside him and the datapad he was holding. Despite the weather, he felt—forbiddingly—a sense of darkness approaching. Galen frowned.

Opposite him, Krennic, almost always in white, smiled. The current between them hums with a renewed sense of purpose and energy. “No need to thank me. Now, are you up for some coffee?”

It was so deadly casual, so businesslike, so like _Orson_. The blood, Galen realised, doesn’t mean anything to him. It was where they diverged, like veins of crystals snaking towards different tunnels in a cave.

But perhaps the most terrible thing about all of this is that he doesn’t want to get away from Orson Krennic, to escape the pull.

Or, perhaps, it was Galen’s own vow—one that he would repeat to himself many years on—to save his friend from the ghost inside his machine.

It was most likely a doomed enterprise, and Galen Erso had no illusions about his chances.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Galen Erso is a precious cinnamon roll, and he needs hugs. Seriously. I'm going to try and make the next chapter lighter (I promised y'all college shenanigans, so college shenanigans you shall have). Sorry if I made any mistakes, thank you for reading this, and happy (early) 2017!


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